After all these years of cooking meals for the family, I've run out of inspiration. That's one nice thing about an empty nest - I don't have to cook for the kids. The husband, well, he can fend for himself! Actually, he's been doing quite a bit of the cooking lately (thank you, Sweetie, I love you!). With the cold weather, I've been making a lot of soup lately. I can make a big pot once and it lasts for several days. But it does get old after a while. My husband cooked tonight and we had tacos - it was a nice change. What are you having? Please share any quick and easy recipes you have!
So what's for dinner? Well, that would depend on what you call dinner. A common argument among my wife (who grew up in San Francisco) and I (who grew up on a farm in the UP of Michigan) is over what to call the noon and evening meals. She would have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, whereas I will insist that it is breakfast, dinner, and supper. Lunch is something that you pack for work, or when you're going on a trip, and brunch is some made-up nonsense invented by yuppies.
That's so funny. I'm from the south, and we have breakfast, lunch and dinner but my elementary school principal was like you and he would always call our lunch "dinner". It was quite confusing for a 6 year old! The argument my husband and I always have is what's a veggie. I'm drummed into him over the years, that dinner has to have a protein, a carb and a veggie. He's of the school that potatoes are veggies - I keep arguing that they are carbs. So when he makes meals we get meat and potatoes, when I cook we get lots of veggies.
Make the potatoes into french fries, then the Ketchup that he puts on them can serve as the vegetable.
Hey, you must work for the government school lunch program!! They insist that pizza is a veggie because of the tomato sauce, tater tots are veggies, and yes, like you said, ketchup.
It is hard to say what is for dinner when you have to feed teenagers, I don't really want to cook dinner today, I would be fine with yogurt and maybe some soup, but the boys will not go for that. I can remember having something easy like pancakes for dinner when their moms were little, boys are so hard to feed. They come into the house asking what's for dinner and how soon can they get it. We eat breakfast, lunch and dinner in this area, don't really hear supper offered at a meal time.
That use of the word 'dinner' at 'lunchtime' is a surprise as I thought that was a peculiarly Australian foible and that the rest of the world called it lunch. Learn something every day. But we called the main evening meal 'Tea' and 'supper' was a small snack and hot drink just before bedtime.
Here's an interesting discussion of the difference between supper and dinner. I'm not sure how accurate it is, since it suggests that the words mean the same thing throughout the United States, but it follows, pretty much, the definitions given here.
Here in my neck of the woods, we have breakfast, lunch and dinner. Last night I baked chicken legs for my roommate and a chicken breast for me. I also made brown rice and steamed cauliflower. There are no leftovers, which is always a good sign
Left over breakfast of course! A rolled up cold pancake with scrambled eggs and a little brown sugar inside. Lousy for a weight problem but great for the kids, grandkids or the kid in me. Sausages rolled up in them are great too. I did get this idea very honestly. We lived on the banks of the Mississippi river when I was pretty young. My mother would make me a "roll up" and send me outside while she did whatever. A roll up and fishing. That's the ticket!
I have really been craving Bar-B-Que lately. I also really had a craving for a good macaroni salad. This evening I made myself that macaroni salad, which is very simple. Elbow macaroni, mayonnaise, sweet onion chopped fine, and oregano, salt and pepper of course. I know it sounds simple but it is very good. With that I am going to have some pork shoulder that I cooked in my crock pot for about seven hours. I cannot wait, it will be a very good meal. You guys made me hungrier with all your posts, maybe I will go pick now!
Lol, you read my mind. It isn't very often we are without leftovers. I certainly didn't plan that out very good, now did I ??
It really depends on our mood and by that I mean what my wife wants to eat. The dinner talk can be tedious at times and it consists of me making suggestions and her saying no until we find something she would like to eat. If the wife doesn't feel like cooking, we mostly order take out, nothing fancy mind you. Most of the time it's Asian food but sometimes we get carried away and order Indian or something like that. We like to mix it up from time to time.
Oh, how I wish I could get my hubby to make some suggestions. To be honest, I don't really mind the cooking, its trying to figure out what to have. I have told hubby, I will cook anything he wants but he has to suggest it. His answer "Make whatever you want"..lol I am ahead of the game tonight because yesterday I spent so much time outside digging us out of the snow that I didn't make what was planned for dinner. So tonight its tortellini with alfredo sauce with perhaps a salad or some garlic bread.